Rubio pushes variation of the ‘foreign’ smear

Over the summer, the Romney campaign began a not-so-subtle effort to attack President Obama as “foreign.” Saturday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), before being pulled from the trail due to a family emergency, pushed a similar, more overt version of the same attack.

For those who can’t watch clips online, the far-right senator said the president’s ideas are “the ideas of countries people come here to get away from.”

The crowd seemed to like the line, but I’m curious: can Rubio – or anyone else – actually identify an Obama idea that comes from “countries people come here to get away from”?

Obama’s ideas on taxes are effectively the same as Bill Clinton’s. Obama’s ideas on comprehensive immigration reform are effectively the same as George W. Bush’s. Obama’s ideas on health care reform are effectively the same as moderate Republicans’ from the 1990s and Mitt Romney’s own state-based policy.

Obama’s ideas on gay rights are effectively the same as Dick Cheney’s. Obama’s ideas on a cap-and-trade policy are effectively the same as those found in the McCain-Palin platform. Obama’s ideas on fiscal and monetary policy are effectively the same as mainstream economists’ for the last several decades. Obama’s ideas on foreign policy are so uncontroversial, Romney endorsed most of them during a debate last week.

From the beginning of his presidency, for good or ill, Obama has made a deliberate effort to stick to policy proposals that have traditionally enjoyed bipartisan support. So here’s a follow-up question for Marco Rubio: can you name one of these foreign ideas you find so offensive?